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It’s been more than two years since Xyz Monsters made their debut in Starter Deck: Dawn of the Xyz, but we still have just five Rank 2’s! Shadow Specters is going to bring us another one – the first-ever Rank 2 with the WATER Attribute. Armored Kappa’s a defensive wall, and it’s even better at keeping your Life Points safe than Gachi GachiGantetsu. It can shut down your opponent’s Battle Phase for an entire turn, but it can also grow into a 2400 ATK behemoth all on its own.

There are few feelings worse than Summoning forth the perfect aquatic army, only to get to have the seas turn against you as you’re blasted by Torrential Tribute. If that sounds like a problem you monsters regularly face, take a look at Torrential Reborn!

For months, Mermail Duelists relied on GenexUndine to send monsters like AtlanteanDragoons and AtlanteanMarksman to the Graveyard, setting up big plays and raking in free cards. But YCS Miami and Cosmo Blazer changed everything, and now the top WATER Deck, as seen in its YCS Austin victory, is focused entirely on Atlanteans and Mermails, without Genex Undine or Genex Controller.

New cards like MermailAbyssteus made the Mermail strategy faster and more consistent, giving it better search power, more ways to discard WATER monsters for their effects, and doubling their number of Level 7’s. The result was a surge of interest in certain cards from Abyss Rising that tied the strategy together.

The newest mermonsters, Mermail Abyssleed and Mermail Abyssteus are capable of some truly incredible feats. If Abyssleed resolves its effect even once in a Duel, your chances of winning go way up, and he has 2700 ATK to boot. Abyssteus transmutes merely OK hands into truly great hands. But the key to making the most of these monstrous beasts of the sea is the lovely Level 3 mermaids from Abyss Rising and Cosmo Blazer.

With strong showings at YCS Seattle and YCS Barcelona, the new Mermail strategy was quickly recognized as one of the deadliest Decks in Dueling today. Cards like MermailAbyssmegalo and AtlanteanMarksman combine to create unpredictable combos, demolishing your opponent’s field with destruction effects and putting big monsters on the warpath. In order to play them properly, or battle back against them, you need to know what the strategy can do. While we’ve talked about some of the simple combos before, recent YCS action showed off a handful of powerful moves that are a little more complicated. Here are some powerful plays that Mermail Decks can unleash out of nowhere!